Did you watch any of the footage? This was not AAU ball matador defense, and not work on the same play over and over again. Could they have challenged the 3 more? yes. Could they have challenged the rebounds more, yes. But, whether or not Tech was playing at Big12 intensity, they were playing substantially above anything we will see in conference short of maybe Western Kentucky and one or two others. At worst, you can say that we went toe to toe with an elite team playing at 80%, and that's still something. We would have been happy if we lost by less than 20.
Besides, I demand to be unrealistically optimistic about UTEP basketball. Sit down, you're rocking the boat.